Varro says it was so called "from _coïre_, to meet,--the place of the
ratification of the treaty between the Romans and Sabines." Livy tells
us "it was an open space marked out in the Forum, where the assemblies
called Comitia Curiata took place for the purpose of electing
ministers of religious rites, making laws of a certain description,
and deciding some suits, and inflicting punishment on criminals."
Domitian ordered the gallants of Cornelia, the president of the
Vestal Virgins, to be whipped to death with rods in the Comitium.
A line of seven brick bases for honorary statues occupies one side;
the edge of the paved area marks the top; the remains of a row of
shops, destroyed by Signor Rossa in 1872, the bottom. The line of the
modern road on the right was called